Poem - we took your yard from you

we took your yard from you
the one you liked to dig in
and tout trucks with loads
back and forth back and forth
from one imaginary work-site
to the other ones

i found out later
the neighbors looked at the marks
on the slats of the fence
where you stood to greet them
as they came and they went
you were gone for good
now on an opposite coast
they said they missed seeing you
missed you every day
since

when i knew this
all the time i hated them
was reformed and i felt
a double great loss for
your beautiful innocence
and my dark stupidity

since then i have resolved
to err on the sunny side of the mind
and we play all the time
in the park


+

For Daniel
2015

Poem: just a poem / can save the world / one line at a time

dreamers all
undependable dreamers
a poet male or female

some worked by gas light and had ink
other with just a pencil by moonlight
some had no paper no pen and no light
they wrote and remembered it
they spoke it in code or
they told the work as they were burned
in jail buried alive
in the madhouse forever
left on the island of poverty
unpardonable all of them

walking down the street
you saw them and hated them
wished them erased
disgusting and unemployable
not of any use

until you fell in love
with someone
or needed a reason to hope
couldn't understand or take it
not even for one more monument

a scrap of verse
who would know
a few trailing lines

just a poem
can save the world
one line at a time


*

Poem: a senseless book / of unrequited love / from victorian times

.. after 'Flights of Fancy, or Imaginary Scraps'
   by Charles Carrick

a tormented book
of unrequited love
from victorian times

i halt at it because
this could be me even now
doing work after work

creating a private world
as broken and limited
as the real world

a reality that can be
a prison of my own creation
inwardly expressed

or outwardly proclaimed
displaying a lack of faith
or a flaw in courage

*

create and have hope
spring from your sadness
or doubts mature into truth

that in turn invalidates more doubt

through rigorous action

*

but how i would enjoy
the attempt to loaf and bluff
say this too shall pass

how i would like
to linger with blots and stamps
late at night flickering flames


behold a sweet moon

and weep my heart out


**

Thanksgiving
Napa, 2015

Poem - The Hunters in the Snow, 1565 - a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

looking at it
was all i wanted

the frozen countryside
on a muted winter afternoon
the color light grey and blue
the rest white

paths between
frozen ponds

black silent trees

and a fire
outside the inn where they
roasted chestnuts

i wonder
about the heft
of the spear and
how cold your feet get

what the
overcoat feels like
and above all

sigh of
a swaying
half-broken inn

sign



*

from
The Hunters in the Snow, 1565
a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Poem - the invisible library / exists in the sky

the invisible library
exists in the sky
read night or day
in every cloud

morality tale
or parable by the face
of the moon

exaltation mantra
or psalms from
the sun

star koans

blissful endings
in every deep blue
dawn or dusk



**

Poem - but tonight

i saw buddha
in a dream
only his eye fit in the room

he looked over
the top of the wall
and said a few things

naturally i can't
remember what it was
but it was good advice

awake i keep
looking at the section
of ceiling his eye appeared

but tonight
i will dream of a boat
or a fish or a squirrel



***

Poem - A Poem to Tu Fu

he walked down to the river
saw blossoms in the water
wrote it as a conundrum of color
riot hinting at life and death and sex

my river here is a ditch
it looks ugly at low tide
the stuff i see is trash
cars groan down the road

i remember another river
in a wooded valley steep
where nothing bad happened
and i was happy

knowing that the river
in the valley has not changed
or i am here still looking
at a muddy bank i'm grateful

i can go up north to see my river
with any blossoms that fall
or i imagine
signifying everything



**

to
Tu Fu

Poem - Joy is Life Itself

eventually there will be none of you or me left
even a stone or a monument will be swept away to make room

the sentient being who has to do this job will be pissed
of who the fuck put this gross old shit in the way here

so i'd advise you to be sleek clear and clean
and whatever you try to emboss on the world

let it be useful for shade or comfort of some sort
it may stay of it makes a laugh because joy is life itself



***

Poem - my writing is only as good / as my friends

my writing is only as good
as my friends

those who inspired
even through sadness

some of my finest ones
others i can't learn from yet

i hope someday i will
thank you

in the meantime
on goes the day

all hopes too
like magic



*

Poem - even have a smile when / it is getting dark

i remember

there was nothing of the braggart in him
nor was he foolhardy or oblivious to danger
a friend who truly had no fear whatsoever
towards fellow man or at least

he was not compelled to do anything
as a reaction to his fear
he was a keen observer of people
was interested in all the varieties and
how we all felt and thought

he was ugly and his eyes were bright
he had long fingers and he kept his nails long
for playing the guitar he walked as if running
he never stopped smiling a stupid smile
and beautiful women loved him dearly

gorgeous women wanted to be around him
because he was so ugly and smart and he never
took anything from them and he gave them
happiness and made sense from
what they confided in him

selfishly i hardly learned anything
but i did gain a great desire to be fearless
to tell the truth and to listen to beautiful women
because of him i believe in art

still i learned very little from him
but the desire to be with the truth is burned into me
it haunts me i am compelled to be like a bad copy
or bloodless shadow to him who is now gone

he rests

i must carry some of this way on
make life more than just a span of time
to never leave a room in disagreement

walk a city as one yet never alone
even have courage when
it is getting dark



**

For Rubin
Second day after November 2015
Huntington beach